Baby Rabbit with Mushy Poop

[LyndaA]

Hello all,

I have a baby rabbit with mushy poop off and on and am looking for some advice.

Here's the background... The bunny is 7 weeks old. She was syringe raised, starting at 10 days of age. She is bright-eyed and energetic. She is also tiny, no more than 1/2 the size of her siblings. She weighs only 17oz. (Mamma rabbit is about 8-9 lbs). Other than her size, she looks great.

She completely weaned herself from formula about 2 weeks ago. Starting about 10 days ago, she has had mushy shiny black stool off and on. The majority of her poop looks normal. The mushy stuff mainly happens at night. Based on what I have read, I am assuming this is cecal dysbiosis, but I don't know what to do about it.

I did take her to a rabbit savy vet, but as soon as I mentioned cecal dysbiosis, she said that was ridiculous, because rabbits eat their cecotropes. Over $200 later, she has been treated with 3 days of Bene-bac, treated for intestinal parasites (although fecal was negative) and been treated for mites (not sure why). No improvement.

She eats free choice juvenile rabbit food and timothy hay. She gets a tiny portion of parsley and spinach twice daily. I removed the fresh greens from her diet for 2 days, without improvement, so I have added them back. I've considered cutting back her pellets, but she is so tiny and thin that I hesitate to do so.

If it is cecal dysbiosis, what do I do? I'm worried that if she is not eating the cecotropes, that she will eventually succumb to malnourishment. If cecal dysbiosis isn't what's happening, any other ideas?

Thanks so much!
Lynda

 

[Nancy McClelland]

Cut out the veggies til she's 4 months. Also, I'd get some alfalfa and feed that til she's six months--higher protein and calcium for growth. I have some that don't get too much in the way of veggies or else they get really messy.

 

[Zeroshero]

My bunny was also syringe fed and has experienced intermittent soft stool, the only thing that has seemed to work for him is eliminating everything from his diet except having unlimited timothy hay which he consumes in large amounts.

http://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?P=A&A=3012

If you have a healthy parasite free adult bunny it may be more beneficial to your young one to feed it ceccotropes from that bun. I have been advised by some veterinarians that Benebac just isn't effective in rabbits. Day 12 my bun was in the clinic for mucosal enteritis, a week later bacterial enteritis, two weeks ago bloat and GI stasis, it has been 16 weeks of ups and downs. He is still on a daily dose of Cisapride and Simethicone. We have gone through two ten day cycles of antibiotics, (flagyl/baytril) he has been treated with Benebac every other day. I am sorry at this point I don't make any sense. Good luck with your bunny

 

[LyndaA]

All of those ups and downs must be emotionally and financially exhausting! I hope we are not headed that way.

I do have a healthy adult rabbit, but how in the world do I get cecotropes from him? I assume he eats them as they exit, because I have never seen anything from him other than regular poop.

If I can collect them, will the baby readily eat them or is there a trick to feeding them?

 

[JBun]

Usually the cause of cecal dysbiosis, is too many carbs and sugars in the diet. If treats aren't being fed, and veggies aren't causing soft poop, then it is most often the sugars and grains in the rabbits pellets causing it. With my rabbits that have had a more simple case of this, I just reduce their pellets a little bit each day until the mushy poop stops. In a really severe case, pellets may need to be cut out completely for a little while, for the bacterial balance in the gut to be restored. Since your bunny is still young and growing, you can supplement the reduced pellets with alfalfa hay, like Larry suggested, to make up for the reduced protein from reducing the pellets, but usually alfalfa hay has to be slowly introduced, starting with small amounts, as it can cause digestive upset for some rabbits, if introduced too quickly. But it might be good to reduce the pellets first and get the mushy poop to stop, before slowly introducing the alfalfa hay.

It might also be a good idea to look for a more rabbit savvy vet, as cecal dysbiosis is a fairly common problem with rabbits. When the good bacteria in the gut is out of balance, rabbits won't eat their cecotropes if they are loaded with bad bacteria and don't smell right to them, and if that vet doesn't have an understanding of this then they can't be too rabbit savvy.

http://www.medirabbit.com/EN/GI_diseases/drop/Drp_en.htm
http://www.sawneeanimalclinic.com/downloads/chronic_intermittent_diarrhea_in_rabbits.pdf
http://www.rabbitsonline.net/f28/finding-vet-13366/
http://rabbit.org/vet-listings/